The eReader Megathread: Yes, all publishers hate Canada

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Inspect Your Gadgets > The eReader Megathread: Yes, all publishers hate Canada

SLOSifl: Aug 10, 2002

I got my Kindle 3 today (WiFi only model), and I love it so far. Although it's very easy to use, my favorite thing so far was the unboxing. I swear I thought the Getting Started instructions were printed on the plastic screen protector. What a cool use of the screen tech.

# ¿ Nov 28, 2010 02:22

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# ¿ May 8, 2024 03:58

SLOSifl: Aug 10, 2002

pienipple posted:

http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Kindle_Screen_Saver_Hack_for_all_2.x_and_3.x_Kindles

Use this guide instead.

I used this guide (actually this thread linked in the guide) before I even started reading anything on my Kindle.

It worked fine on a Kindle 3. Very easy.

# ¿ Nov 29, 2010 16:07

SLOSifl: Aug 10, 2002

For screensavers (it's not really saving the screen from anything...?), I've found that a lot of sites post some nice pictures with really bad contrast. This is usually a result of taking a full color image and converting it to grayscale with no tweaking for the target device.

There are two main reasons for this. First, on e-ink screens, there are only 16 or so shades of gray. Second, an image that doesn't use both full black and full white will look washed out.

Here is an image I grabbed from a kindle screensaver blog ~~because I am a loser~~ specifically for this demo:

Click here for the full 600x800 image.

Notice that it's very gray.

Here are the levels:

The flat sections at the left and (especially) the right indicate that the image doesn't make very good use of the available color space. Because we're not dealing with any color information, this means everything within any 1/16th sliver of the colorspace will look identical.

If the image was in color, this wouldn't necessarily be as important because there would still be some definition.

And, as I mentioned, the lack of a full black and full white will just make the thing looked washed out.

Levels fixed by pulling in the range from both sides until it looks better. Some detail may be lost if you pull the range in too far, but again, the lack of grayscale levels is going to lose detail anyway.

Fixed:

You can see that I went a little past the first hint of white and black.

The result:

Click here for the full 600x800 image.

The second image looks *much* better on my Kindle.

# ¿ Dec 2, 2010 19:32

SLOSifl: Aug 10, 2002

Parker Lewis posted:

Cool idea, I'm going to give that a try with some of my favorite passages. Thanks!

Fun site. Here's a Carl Sagan one (used his Wikipedia page as a source) for space nerds.

Click here for the full 600x800 image.

# ¿ Dec 2, 2010 20:40

SLOSifl: Aug 10, 2002

sirbeefalot posted:

This is truth. I didn't have anything with Micro USB until I got my Pre, and now I don't touch any of the million Mini USB cables anymore as every new thing I've been using has Micro USB instead.

I use my Pre charger to charge my Kindle, my Kindle charger for my EVO and my EVO charger as a backup in my car. I could rearrange them but I won't.

# ¿ Dec 11, 2010 04:12

SLOSifl: Aug 10, 2002

sirbeefalot posted:

Is there a listing of different Kindle hacks out there somewhere? There's not really anything in particular that I want to do; I'm just curious as far as what can be done, really. I've done the custom screensaver hack, and I've seen font hacks, is that it?

I kind of hope there aren't too many hacks for it. I love the screen on my Kindle, and the only reason I can sit down and actually use it for reading is that it's not a multi-function device. poo poo, I spent like 3 hours this week hacking and tweaking my phone just because I could. If I was trying to read a book, and could easily check my email, play some games, browse the web and hack the thing, I would never make it through a book in a reasonable amount of time. I am very easily distracted if the distractions are in my hand.

# ¿ Dec 23, 2010 18:59

SLOSifl: Aug 10, 2002

The Aphasian posted:

Whoops.

poo poo. Well, I do love loving with my devices. As long as I don't end up being distracted while actually using it, I'm fine. I haven't even looked at that page yet, but the best would be having the current book's cover on the lock screen. Currently I have a small rotation of Harry Potter and Twilight covers, as a joke (kind of).

# ¿ Dec 23, 2010 19:48

SLOSifl: Aug 10, 2002

madprocess posted:

I use the official lighted case. It's nice and sturdy, and the booklight in it is very useful for bedtime reading.

The official lighted case is great. Very sturdy, and the light is great. My only complaint is that the Kindle + case is a bit heavy compared to the Kindle alone, but it's easy enough to pop the device out of the case when needed.

# ¿ Dec 25, 2010 17:44

SLOSifl: Aug 10, 2002

I got my dad a Kindle 3 for xmas, and while I was showing him some cool books on Amazon to buy with a gift card, I noticed you can now gift an ebook to someone. I hopped on my account and sent him a book. I never noticed that option before (I probably missed it, but I'm glad I found it today!).

# ¿ Dec 26, 2010 00:38

SLOSifl: Aug 10, 2002

Centipeed posted:

I imagine a state similar to a laptop being in standby, but now that I consider it, it's no faster to turn on when the screen-saver is up than when you switch it off completely.

I will put it to sleep from now on, rather than switching it off.

Considering the battery will last for weeks if you don't leave wifi on all the time, I think you will probably be okay doing that.

It's not like books shows up randomly or anything, so I only turn on wifi if I actually bought a book or sent some through my @kindle email. I think I charged it once, and only because I wanted to top it off to take on vacation.

# ¿ Dec 29, 2010 01:18

SLOSifl: Aug 10, 2002

I wanted to download a book for my Kindle Wifi yesterday while I was on a train, so I used Wireless Tether from my phone instead. :byodood:

Probably the first and only time I'll "need" to do that, but it wasn't worth $50 extra for 3G for me.

# ¿ Jan 1, 2011 07:56

SLOSifl: Aug 10, 2002

stubblyhead posted:

Really, I tried this with mine the other day as I wasn't able to get on my office wifi, and it said it cannot connect to enterprise or ad-hoc networks.

The EVO (and several other phones) support infrastructure mode. Going out on a limb, I'll guess that any phone that supports carrier-branded wifi tethering has chipset support for a "normal" wifi network. Whether Wifi Tether supports that mode is probably not guaranteed, but the EVO and the chipset it uses most definitely works with Wifi Tether.

I've never tried it on any other phone, so I didn't realize there was a difference until I updated the app earlier today. It specifically mentioned infrastructure mode support for the EVO, which it already supported before the most recent update.

SLOSifl fucked around with this message at 23:50 on Jan 1, 2011

# ¿ Jan 1, 2011 23:47

SLOSifl: Aug 10, 2002

Trig Discipline posted:

Totally. Like on Amazon you enter the name of a book you're interested in, hit search, and then it comes right up. Whereas with B&N you enter the name of a book you're interested in, hit search, and then it comes right up. What were they thinking?

I almost never search for a book. Most of the time, I look through certain categories and read the reviews.

# ¿ Jan 8, 2011 19:14

SLOSifl: Aug 10, 2002

If the price doesn't kill you, the lighted case is really great and avoids the issue that the non-lighted case has. I don't often find myself in a situation where I need the light, but I do frequently use it to give me a little extra. It helps a lot when lighting is less than perfect, even if it's totally possible to read without additional light.

# ¿ Jan 13, 2011 16:43

SLOSifl: Aug 10, 2002

Vertigus posted:

I really like these screensavers, but so many of them look *really* dark on my Kindle.

I grabbed all of those and adjusted their contrast to (hopefully) look better on the Kindle screen.

# ¿ Feb 1, 2011 17:30

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# ¿ May 8, 2024 03:58

SLOSifl: Aug 10, 2002

smackfu posted:

Are the Kindle leather covers really as brightly colored as they look on the website? In particular, the blue / green / orange.

I had a tough time getting the lighting to look right, but the comparison with the Netflix envelope should help. They aren't shockingly bright, but they aren't dull either.

Red and green.

# ¿ Mar 4, 2011 17:06

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Inspect Your Gadgets > The eReader Megathread: Yes, all publishers hate Canada